1997CRS12560 TRIBUTE TO SENATOR WILLIAM B. SPONG, JR., OF VIRGINIA

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Archive-Name: gov/us/fed/congress/record/1997/nov/13/1997CRS12560
[Congressional Record: November 13, 1997 (Senate)]
[Page S12560-S12562]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr13no97-110]

TRIBUTE TO SENATOR WILLIAM B. SPONG, JR., OF VIRGINIA

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I rise today to reflect on the life and
service of William B. Spong, Jr., a distinguished statesman, a former
U.S. Senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia, and a mentor to many of
us who entered politics inspired by his extraordinary conviction.
Bill Spong died in Portsmouth, VA, on October 8, 1997, at the age of
77. He left behind a son, a daughter, five grandchildren, and a legacy
of public service to the people of Virginia unmatched in his lifetime.
As his childhood friend, Dick Davis, said so eloquently, ``the state
has lost a leader that may never be replaced.''
Bill Spong epitomized the professional commitment and personal
integrity that was his hallmark. He was a quiet giant.
The product of two outstanding Virginia universities--Hampden Sydney
College and the University of Virginia School of Law--Bill Spong could
have gone anywhere and made money. But he went home to Portsmouth, set
up a law practice with his friend, Dick Davis, and successfully ran for
the Virginia House of Delegates and then the State senate.
A philosopher once said, while ``every man is a creature of the age
in which he lives, very few are able to raise themselves above the
ideas of the time.'' We, in Virginia, will be forever grateful that
Bill Spong was one of those rare individuals who thought--and acted--
ahead of his time. While in the House of Delegates, he joined a
moderate group of ``Young Turks'' to pressure the legendary Byrd
Machine into investing more money into education. And as a member of
the State senate in 1958, he exhibited what would become a lifetime
understanding of the value of learning by chairing a statewide
Commission on Public Education.
Then, in 1966, Bill Spong made history. In a Democratic primary, he
challenged U.S. Senator A. Willis Robertson, a 20 year Byrd machine-
backed incumbent, and won by 611 votes. ``We called him Landslide
Spong,'' remembered his friend and campaign manager William C. Battle.
As a member of this body, Mr. President, Bill Spong focused not on
politics, but on policy and principle. ``He agonized over legislation
in his quest to do what he believed to be right,'' his former Press
Secretary, Pete Glazer, said recently.
``Bill Spong was the kind of public servant we all try to emulate,''
said Congressman Robert C. Scott, ``a man of integrity who courageously
stood by his convictions and his principles, even when it might not be
the immediately popular thing to do.'' As Alson H. Smith, Jr.,
reflected: ``If Bill Spong thought it was right, he did it.''
Mr. President, Bill Spong was a statesman.
But 1972 taught us that Senators with great courage can be demagogued
and out spent, and Bill Spong lost his Senate seat amidst George
McGovern's landslide defeat to Richard Nixon. ``In the Watergate year
of 1971,'' remembered his college friend, and former U.S. attorney, Tom
Mason, ``Bill Spong became an early victim of the 11th hour 30-second
television spots that continue to plague our political system.'' ``In
my judgement,'' Mason said, ``Bill Spong's defeat in 1972 was one of
the worst developments in Virginia's political history.''
The Senate's great loss, however, was the Commonwealth's great gain,
as Bill Spong left this institution to continue his extraordinary
service to Virginia. He became dean of William and Mary's Marshall-
Wythe School of Law in 1976 and his stewardship brought our Nation's
oldest law school from near ruin to national prominence. In 1989, he
became the interim president of Old Dominion University in Norfolk.
``He had a real intellectual bent,'' remembered Bill Battle. ``He was
probably more comfortable as Dean of the Law School at William and Mary
than at any other time of his life.''
``His sense of humor was unbelievable,'' Battle continued. ``When we
were in law school together after World War II, he was always where the
trouble was but never in it. It's hard to believe he's no longer
around.''
Mr. President, we may mourn Bill Spong's death. We may remember his
life. But we may never know the breadth of his legacy, or the
inspiration he lent along the way. No political leader in the
Commonwealth was more responsible for my own entry into Virginia
politics than Bill Spong. Dick

[[Page S12561]]

Davis entered public life because he was angry that his lifelong
friend--who he described last week as ``a great Virginian and a great
Senator'' --lost his Senate seat. There's no question that Bill Spong
was an enormous force in the leadership of our State that began in
1981.
In fact, in 1977, when I was Lieutenant Governor and our party was
fractured and discouraged, I asked Bill Spong to help us put the pieces
back together. I'll always be grateful that the Spong Commission
Report, as we called it, laid the groundwork for the unity we needed to
succeed 4 years later.
Mr. President, during the time I served as Governor, I appointed Bill
Spong to the Council on Higher Education and asked him to Chair the
Governor's Commission on the Future of Virginia. The latter produced an
extraordinary report that helped guide public policy--and progress--in
Virginia for over a decade. Just last summer, I asked Bill Spong to
chair a judicial nomination committee to recommend a nominee for the
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. As always,
his extraordinary judgement and unique vision were invaluable.
``Bill worked hard throughout his public and private life to bring
Virginians together to make a better world for all of us,'' Congressman
Scott said. ``I will miss his leadership and his friendship.''
``He never forgot where he came from,'' remembered his former press
aide, Pete Glazer, ``and he died in the city where he was born.''
``Two hundred years ago, we were fortunate to have dedicated and
enlightened leaders of this Commonwealth,'' said H. Benson Dendy III.
``Truly Senator Spong was such as a leader of our time.''
I will close, Mr. President, with two eulogies delivered at Bill
Spong's memorial service in Williamsburg by Robert P. Crouch, Jr. and
Timothy J. Sullivan. Their eloquence is a shining tribute to a man who
has been an inspiration to so many.
I ask unanimous consent they be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the eulogies were ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Remarks on the Life of the Honorable William B. Spong, Jr.

(By Robert P. Crouch, Jr.)

Athenians of antiquity defined a statesman as one who
plants trees knowing he will never enjoy their shade. Such
was the statesmanship--such was the life--of William Belser
Spong, Jr.
Bill Spong entered my life in June of 1971, when I followed
my friend, the Senator's good and devoted friend, Whitt
Clement, as the Senator's driver and aide. I traveled with
the Senator in that capacity for the remaining year and a
half of his Senate service.
It was an unusual position that we who served as ``wheelman
and gofer'' occupied. Callow and often bungling, just out of
college, we had a staff position that was among the most
humble in the office . . . in title, in rank, and in salary.
But ours was also the most privileged position on the
staff. For we were with the Senator. And anyone who was with
Bill Spong for much time at all became his student.
Awestruck to work for this Senator whose career I had
admired from a distance, I traveled with him to his beloved
Portsmouth during my first week on the job. Entering the
Spong home, luggage in hand, I was met by the Senator's
mother, Emily Spong. (My awe was to increase very rapidly.)
She stood at the top of the stairs and said to me, with what
I would come to know as unquestionable authority:
``Young man, you go tell Billy, the one you call `Senator,'
to get in here right now!''
I quickly developed a tremendous affection for Emily Spong,
fueled, in part, by her sharing with me stories of youthful
misbehavior of the Senator and his best friend Richard, but I
never stopped calling her son ``The Senator.''
And while we of his Senate staff would, over the years,
hear him referred to as ``Dean Spong,'' then ``President
Spong'' (I liked that one a lot, and suspect that he enjoyed
it as well), or--more familiarly as--``Bill,'' or ``Billy,''
or even ``Spongo,'' by some of his oldest and dearest
friends--Tom Mason, Dick Davis, the Battle boys, John and
Bill, among others--most of those of us who worked with him
in Washington would always refer to him as ``The Senator.''
And always will.
The details of that Senate service--the legislation, the
tough decisions on tough votes, the campaigns--are well known
and have been well reviewed in recent news articles. I prefer
to take this brief time to speak of the character of his
public service.
An anecdote shared with me by an assistant United States
attorney in our Roanoke office, Don Wolthuis, who was a
student of the Senator at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law,
captures that character. Faced with a difficult personal
decision, Don went to Dean Spong for advice. After hearing
Don explain his dilemma, the Senator simply responded:
``Whatever you do, do it well.''
But ``doing it well'' was not a simple or brief process for
Bill Spong. It was a well ordered and deliberate process. And
it was this he applied to his Senate service as he did to
every other aspect of his life. It involved anticipating the
challenges and the needs of the future; scanning the horizon
of time; thoughtfully examining options and consequences;
making a well informed choice, then carrying through with
that decision with grace and excellence. He lived the motto
of Virginia-born Sam Houston: ``Do the right thing and risk
the consequences.''
The Senator delighted in one reporter's description of him
as ``A gray cat in the Chesapeake fog.'' During that time, in
the years since, and in the past several days, the word
``cautious'' has been frequently used to describe him. If
caution is understood to mean ``risk adverse,'' then it is
incorrectly applied to Bill Spong, for it is the seemingly
``cautious'' choice which is often the least popular; the
most difficult to make; the least understood by others;
the most frustrating to sustain; and the most expensive.
His integrity--intellectual and moral--informed all that
Bill Spong did in the United States Senate, and it earned him
the respect and affection of his colleagues of both political
parties, and of their office and committee staff.
We who worked for him during those years learned not only
from the Bill Spong of the Senate office and the Senate
floor. He later acknowledged that his political fortune was
the victim of his Senate duty--and it is correct that he
chose to sacrifice the votes of civil club meetings to the
votes duty required he cast on the Senate floor. However, it
should also be understood that whenever he was free from
Senate duties, he was in the State. During that year and a
half, for example, we traveled to all but one of Virginia's
counties. And what travels those were.
He loved two Virginias. First, Virginia Wise Galliford, the
Marine Corps general's daughter he married and with whom he
raised Martha and Tom. She was a beautiful, generous, and
strong woman who also graced the lives of many here today,
and we misss her.
And to be with the Senator was to learn of the other
Virginia of his life, the Commonwealth: its magnificent
natural beauty, its wonderful and diverse people, its
history--colonial, Civil War, twentieth century--and,
certainly, its politics; traveling with Senator Spong was a
course in the rule of law; a class in big band music; a
seminar in sports from Bill Belser, his Walter Mitty-
sportswriter self (and if last week's resignation of UNC's
Dean Smith marked the departure of the ACC's greatest coach,
it has also just lost its greatest fan in Bill Spong).
We, his staff and supporters, knew then, of course, that
his Senate tenure was too short. History knows it now. Yet,
the Senate's loss, the Nation's loss, was clearly the gain of
this great institution and of many others he cared so deeply
about.
His departure from the Senate enabled him to spend more
time with his family, with Virginia, with Martha, and with
Tom. News articles have related his expression in later years
of how important that was to him. Many of us with him in 1972
heard him say it then.
To Martha and Tom and to other members of the Spong family,
our thoughts and prayers for you today will extend into the
future. He was immensely proud of you, and of his and
Virginia's five splendid grandchildren: Edward, Peter, Chase,
Madison, and Lucy.
These beautiful and historic surroundings remind us that
there have been other ``gray cats'' in Virginia's history.
George Wythe, George Mason, come to mind. They turned events,
and their lives sent ripples through decades and generations,
and into the centuries.
As we reflect on the life of William Spong, our fine
teacher, many of us know our own lives were enriched and
blessed by the important place he has had, and will continue
to have, in them.
We know, too, and history will conclude, that in his public
service, Mr. Spong of Virginia was the best of his day, and
is among the greatest of Virginians.
____

Eulogy for William B. Spong, Jr.

(By Timothy J. Sullivan)

It all began--with bourbon--and with tuna salad. Not a few
of you must be wondering what I could possibly mean. How
could Bill Spong's triumphant William and Mary years have
anything at all to do with bourbon and tuna salad? But that
is the way they did begin, and you should know the story.
On a brilliant autumn Saturday sometime in October of 1975
I drove from Williamsburg to Portsmouth. I was the very young
chair of the William and Mary Law Dean Search Committee. My
job--and it seemed to me mission impossible--was to help
convince Senator Spong that he really--really--did want to
become dean of a law school which was at substantial risk of
losing its professional accreditation.
Bill invited me to meet him at his home. We sat down to
lunch at the kitchen table. His beloved Virginia provided the
tuna salad--which was very good, Bill supplied the bourbon--
which was also good. Martha hovered--so it seemed to me--
skeptically on the

[[Page S12562]]

fringes of the room. Tommy would occasionally catapult
through in pursuit of an errant soccer ball.
Bill and I talked--he was interested--and the rest is happy
history. Bill Spong did--as we all know--come to William and
Mary, and his leadership first healed a crippled institution
and then raised it to a level of national distinction that
none of us dared dream. He built a place of genuine
intellectual excellence--but he did more. He built a law
school of which George Wythe would have approved. And that is
not a casual compliment. George Wythe's approval mattered to
Bill--it mattered very much. Bill's inspiration shaped a
place where would be lawyers learned not only their duty to
their clients, but their duty to humanity--a place where
professional success was and is defined not only by hours
billed--but by a client's burdens lifted--by anguish eased.
During much of Bill's deanship, I served as one of his
associate deans. We became friends--more than friends
really--our association deepened in ways that--then and now--
makes it one of the great treasures of my life.
He was my teacher, too. I learned life lessons that I have
never forgotten and for which I have never failed to be
grateful. As a teacher, Bill was almost magical. He taught
without seeming to teach, and you learned without realizing
that you were being taught--until afterwards--when you were
left to discover--with manifest joy--the power of the lessons
he had lodged deep within your heart.
As most of you know, Bill did not drive. When he was here,
I was one of those who shared with Virginia the
responsibility of getting him where he needed to go--and that
led to not a few adventures.
One day he asked me whether I would like to go to Hampden-
Sydney. I said yes. I had never been there--and I was anxious
to see for myself--a place Bill really believed was some kind
of collegiate paradise. I asked him when I should pick him
up. He said--don't worry--just be here in the morning. When I
arrived on the next day, I discovered he had engaged Mr.
Albert Durant--a loquacious and long-time chauffeur for
hire--who was something of a local institution. Mr. Durant's
vehicle was a great, long black limousine--the vintage of
which would have given it pride of place in President
Eisenhower's first inaugural parade.
We bought sandwiches from the Cheese Shop and rolled up the
road to Farmville--fully occupied by Mr. Durant's non-stop
commentary while eating our lunch out of paper sacks in the
back seat.
When we approached the limits of that collegiate paradise--
Bill leaned forward and said--Mr. Durant . . . ``Mr. Durant .
. . see that alley up there on the right--turn in there. I
can't let them see me coming in a car like this.'' Now--it
wouldn't have been accurate exactly--to say that we snuck on
to the campus in camouflage--but it would be accurate to say
that we didn't make a point of being seen until we were a
safe distance from any possible connection with Mr. Durant's
gleaming but antique limousine.
On the way home, we stopped to get gas in what was then the
wilderness of Chesterfield. I got out with Mr. Durant to
stretch my legs. Bill stayed in the car. As he serviced the
car, the attendant peered in to the back window--turned to
me--and asked with some awe in his voice--``Would that be the
Governor in there?'' ``No,'' I said, ``but he should have
been.'' I still think that. He should have been.
But now, all is memory--the life is complete. What he
should have been doesn't matter. What does is what he was.
And what he way--was the most thoughtful public servant of
his generation--a great man who lived this Commonwealth--not
uncritically--but loved it still--the beauty of the land--the
decency of its people--the glory of its history.
What he was--was a teacher and builder who believe
profoundly in the power of education and who struck many a
powerful blow for civility and civilization.
What he was--was a friend whose friendship made you laugh
for the sheer joy of it, whose love gave you strength and
whose example gave you courage.
All that we must consign to memory--at the moment it is a
memory that wounds--and deeply.
But we all know--that in God's good time--that the would
will mostly heal--the pain will largely disappear--and we
will be left with the wonder--and may I say the warming glory
of having been numbered among that special band who loved and
were loved by our eternal friend--Bill Spong.

Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I note the temporary absence of anyone else
seeking to speak. I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

____________________